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Computer Science
Software Engineering

A model of context-dependent component connectors

Profile image of Marcello BonsangueMarcello Bonsangue

2012, Science of Computer Programming

https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SCICO.2011.01.006
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22 pages

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Abstract

Recent approaches to component-based software engineering employ coordinating connectors to compose components into software systems. For maximum flexibility and reuse such connectors can themselves be composed, resulting in an expressive calculus of connectors whose semantics encompasses complex combinations of synchronisation, mutual exclusion, non-deterministic choice and state-dependent behaviour.

Related papers

Modeling component connectors in Reo by constraint automata
Marjan Sirjani

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2003

In this paper we introduce constraint automata and propose them as an operational model for Reo, an exogenous coordination language for compositional construction of component connectors based on a calculus of channels. By providing composition operators for constraint automata and defining notions of equivalence and refinement relations for them, this paper covers the foundations for building tools to address such concerns as the automated construction of the automaton for a given component connector, equivalence-or containment-checking of the behavior of two given connectors, and verification of coordination mechanisms.

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Formal Semantics and Analysis of Component Connectors in Reo
Marjan Sirjani

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2006

We present an operational semantics for a component composition language called Reo. Reo connectors exogenously compose and coordinate the interactions among individual components that comprise a complex system, into a coherent collaboration. The formal semantics we present here paves the way for a rigorous study of the behavior of component composition mechanisms. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a rigorous approach, we give a faithful translation of Reo semantics into the Maude term rewriting language. This translation allows us to exploit the rewriting engine and the model-checking module in the Maude tool-set to symbolically run and model-check the behavior of Reo connectors.

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Encoding Context-Sensitivity in Reo into Non-Context-Sensitive Semantic Models
Farhad Arbab

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

Reo is a coordination language which can be used to model the interactions among a set of components or services in a compositional manner using connectors. The language concepts of Reo include synchronization, mutual exclusion, data manipulation, memory and contextdependency. Context-dependency facilitates the precise specification of a connector's possible actions in situations where it would otherwise exhibit nondeterministic behavior. All existing formalizations of contextdependency in Reo are based on extended semantic models that provide constructs for modeling the presence and absence of I/O requests at the ports of a connector. In this paper, we show that context-dependency in Reo can be encoded in basic semantic models, namely connector coloring with two colors and constraint automata, by introducing additional fictitious ports for Reo's primitives. Both of these models were considered as not expressive enough to handle context-dependency up to now. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by incorporating context-dependency into the constraint automata based Vereofy model checker.

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Concurrent Logic and Automata Combined: A Semantics for Components
Sotiris Moschoyiannis

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2007

In this paper, we describe a true-concurrent hierarchical logic interpreted over concurrent automata. Concurrent automata constitute a special kind of asynchronous transition system (ATS) used for modelling the behaviour of components as understood in component-based software development. Here, a componentbased system consists of several interacting components whereby each component manages calls to and from the component using ports to ensure encapsulation. Further, a component can be complex and made of several simpler interacting components. When a complex component receives a request through one of its ports, the port delegates the request to an internal component. Our logic allows us to describe the different views we can have on the system. For example, the overall component interactions, whether they occur sequentially, simultaneously or in parallel, and how each component internally manages the received requests (possibly expressed at different levels of detail). Using concurrent automata as an underlying formalism we guarantee that the expressiveness of the logic is preserved in the model. In future work, we plan to integrate our truly-concurrent approach into the Edinburgh Concurrency Workbench.

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Büchi automata for modeling component connectors
Dave Clarke

Software & Systems Modeling, 2011

Reo is an exogenous coordination language for component connectors extending data flow networks with synchronization and context-dependent behavior. The first proposed formalism to capture the operational semantics of Reo is called constraint automaton. In this paper, we propose another operational model of Reo based on Büchi automata in which port synchronization is modeled by records labeling the transitions, whereas context dependencies are stored in the states. It is shown that constraint automata can be recast into our proposed Büchi automata of records. Also, we provide a composition operator which models the joining of two connectors, and show that it can be obtained by using two standard operators: alphabet extension and automata product. Our semantics has the advantage over previous models in that it is based on standard automata theory, so that existing theories and tools can be easily reused. Moreover, it is the first formal model addressing all of Reo's features: synchronization, mutual exclusion, hiding, and context-dependency.

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Synthesis of Reo Circuits for Implementation of Component-Connector Automata Specifications, Coordination Models and Languages
Farhad Arbab

Science of Computer Programming, 2005

Composition of a concurrent system out of components involves coordination of their mutual interactions. In component-based construction, this coordination becomes the responsibility of the glue-code language and its underlying run-time middle-ware. Reo offers an expressive glue-language for construction of coordinating component connectors out of primitive channels. In this paper we consider the problem of synthesizing Reo coordination code from a

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References (39)

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2009

Recent approaches to component-based software engineering employ coordinating connectors to compose components into software systems. For maximum flexibility and reuse, such connectors can themselves be composed, resulting in an expressive calculus of connectors whose semantics encompasses complex combinations of synchronisation, mutual exclusion, non-deterministic choice and state-dependent behaviour. A more expressive notion of connector includes also context-dependent behaviour, namely, whenever the choices the connector can take change non-monotonically as the context, given by the pending activity on its ports, changes. Context dependency can express notions of priority and inhibition. Capturing context-dependent behaviour in formal models is non-trivial, as it is unclear how to propagate context information through composition. In this paper we present an intuitive automata-based formal model of context-dependent connectors, and argue that it is superior to previous attempts at such a model for the coordination language Reo.

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Reo is an exogenous coordination language for component connectors extending data flow networks with synchronization and context-dependent behavior. We propose an operational model of Reo based on Büchi automata in which port synchronization is modeled by records labeling the transitions, whereas context dependencies are stored in the states. We provide a composition operator which models the joining of two connectors, and show that it can be obtained by using two standard operators: alphabet extension and automata product. Our semantics has the advantage over previous models in that it is based on standard automata theory, so that existing theories and tools can be easily reused. Moreover, it is the first formal model addressing all of Reo's features: synchronization, mutual exclusion, hiding, and context-dependency.

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Modeling Component Connectors in Reo by Constraint Automata: (Extended Abstract
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In this paper we introduce constraint automata and propose them as an operational model for Reo, an exogenous coordination language for compositional construction of component connectors based on a calculus of channels. By providing composition operators for constraint automata and defining notions of equivalence and refinement relations for them, this paper covers the foundations for building tools to address such concerns as the automated construction of the automaton for a given component connector, equivalence-or containment-checking of the behavior of two given connectors, and verification of coordination mechanisms.

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Over the past decades, coordination languages have emerged for the specification and implementation of interaction protocols for communicating software components. This class of languages includes Reo, a platform for compositional construction of connectors. In recent years, various formalisms for describing the behavior of Reo connectors have come to existence, each of them serving its own purpose. Naturally, questions about how

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